Human Being

Day 4 (Sheila Cassidy)

I'll talk about the time I was in prison tonight, and about when I
came home tomorrow.

I think I'm becoming famous for a new theology - the theology of
rainbows? How many times do they appear in the bible? 4 times: first
in the Noah story, which is about God's covenant; then in the obscure
book Ezekiel when he was walking alongside the river he had a vision
with a great rainbow surrounding the throne of God; this happened at
the time he was called to be a prophet, so they are a sign of calling
as well as covenant; then in Revelation 1 -- a bit like a disco! Again
around the throne -- so they are a sign of the revelation of God; then
in one of the Wisdom books -- how the beauty of God is made
manifest. But I want you to see them as a sign of covenant, calling,
and revelation.

Have you heard of Oscar Romero, who went from right-wing to a prophet
who was eventually shot? There is no doubt he was called as a prophet
to speak for those who have no voice. Think about the nature of
call... one of the ways to understand this is to look at some of the
call stories in scriptures: look at Abraham, for example; a real man
from Ur (Iraq) -- his call into the unknown: ``Leave your people and
go to a land I will show you''. In fact all of us are called into the
unknown -- we do not know what will happen.

Then look at the call of Moses. Remember he was a murderer who had to
flee the police into the desert. He saw the burning bush, and God
spoke to him from the bush; and he said he was a stutterer, and God
said You go... God calls the unsuitable, because God likes to work
through people in a sense that makes his work manifest.. I was a
non-political student who ended up as a prophet for South America.

Another thing is they don't all go willingly.. people protest, for
example Jeremiah 18, ``You have seduced me...'' he was very unwilling
-- one is drawn on to do things by the fire in one's belly, because it
seems right.

Let's begin... with one's parents, where one is so much the child of
one's parents... I was the daughter of an air force officer and a very
nice artistic lady; I was born just before war broke out; I was sent
to Nanny and looked after by Nanny and Cook. I was my father's last
chance to be clever; we went to Australia on a farm; I wanted to be a
dress designer; then I fell madly in love with the family doctor and
decided to be a doctor instread.. you can see what a deeply spiritual
call it was -- God calls us in all sorts of ways. Then a terrible
thing happened in my last year at school -- religious life was really
flourishing in the 50s... in that last year they had a vocation
retreat... I had this terrible sense that God was calling me to the
religious life ... I cannot tell you how such it distressed me! But I
had a deep sense of being called to God's exclusive service...I talked
with many friends but not my family, they would have been too upset; I
went into medicine at Sidney and Oxford; there I nearly joined the
Dominicans. Then I fell madly in love with a fellow medical student,
but he married an heiress and I had a broken heart; I decided to be a
plastic surgeon. I became a friend with a South American surgeon,
called Consuela -- she was a marxist... she got me to read.. she
told me about the rest of the world, my family really had thought
``Wogs begin at Calais''.

I learnt the facts of life the hard way -- about the arms trade for
example. I listened with one ear and to medicine with the other... I
got fed up with religion and stopped going to church. In 1971 Consuela
went back to Chile, when Allende was elected. It was a country with a
massive wealth gap -- 11% had no toilet, open fires, wine cheaper than
milk, malnutrition rife; you cannot explain it to those who have not
been there. I decided to follow her for a couple of years to get
hospital experience.. off I went, hardly any Spanish,
unprepared. After a while I learnt enough Spanish to work there; they
wouldn't accept my degree and I had to do another. The pattern of
medicine is very different in third world countries, for example with
sore throats not treated there is a a big reserve of streptococcus;
many young people had valvular heart disease; women dying of septic
abortions (induced with bacteria on a stick of parsley); I got my
degree, and just after that there was a military coup -- there was a
build-up as the wealthy people were frightened of the socialist
government... I certainly wouldn't have liked 10 people in my flat!
On one hand there was the movement to change Chile, to get rid of the
poverty and the malnutrition, and on the other side there were the
people opposed to it; behind the middle class was US money -- it is
well documented that they put a lot of money into destabilising
socialist regimes... they paid the lorry drivers to go on strike so
there would be shortages, the whole country would grind to a halt. It
was amazing how you adjust to that kind of experience. The coup came
in september 73; at 11 a.m. it came on the radio that the military
had taken over the running of the country - I was in the market when
people just ran, saw the planes come over and bomb the houses of
parliament. There was curfew, enforced by an unlit helicopter... you
would hear shots -- it was very scary to live in a country like that
and not know what was going on. Eventually we found that people had
been imprisoned in sports stadia -- there is a counter-insurgency
school in Panama, and brazilian tortures came to help to extract
information -- you could trust no-one.

Then little by little things went back to normal. Then in March
Consuela died (she was an alcoholic). The funeral brought me back to
the practice of my faith in a very natural sort of way. A couple of
weeks after her funeral I met some American priests and started to
become aware of a very different kind of church from the one I had
abandoned -- all the pious crap becomes swept away -- I remember going
for lunch with them, and being sent to get a chair from his room, and
saw just a pair of shabby jeans on the back of the door and a shirt on
the bed, and that was all -- it was a shock to find someone of my own
sort living so sparsely, living among the people, hiding those on the
run; I saw the church as it should be for he first time in my life --
I know I wanted to be part of the church that fought for the
oppressed, although I didn't see myself as being that kind of person.

Then I went to Liverpool as my father was ill, and people in my house
-- friends of Consuela's -- were arrested -- and I was told it was not
safe to go back. It was a shock to go back to an affluent country --
I was very sad and wept at a very English Christmas dinner, and I just
knew I wanted to go back. Then my friends were released and I decided
to go back, to throw my lot in with the church. By then my priest
friends has been expelled and I worked in a shanty-town hospital. Then
I wondered, horror of horrors, of whether the vocation thing was
coming back in a very different way; then I went and made an 8-day
retreat with a Jesuit in complete silence and try to listen to what
God was saying. He seemed to be saying to give things up, and I
resisted but then lay on a pile of leaves and said OK damn you -- I
saw it as writing a blank cheque to God. I was preparing to enter a
convent then I was asked whether I would treat a man on the run by a
Jesuit, ad I went to the house of some Americans; there were three
people, a revolutionary Gutierrez; his wife whose baby had been lost
on the run, and a woman the head of the underground. I treated him
for a bullet in his leg.

A week later I was arrested; they broke into the house and shot the
maids dead - last rites with cooking oil! I was picked up,
blindfolded and driven off. It is very difficult to explain what it
was like -- the sense of disbelief, that it must be a terrible
mistake. Then we crossed a bridge and went through some iron gates,
and I was hustled into a small room and told to take off my clothes
and I said don't be silly and I said my father is a vice marshal
there'll be a fuss, and they said our image on the outside is so bad
we don't mind. I was made to strip and tied to an iron bedstead and
tortured with electric shocks to find where I had treated this guy --
he was meant to be the most wanted revolutionary -- and I made a story
in the first session about a big white house with black gates; they
took me to find it and I had to admit I'd been lying. And one said it
would be easier if we killed you know. And they stripped me again and
this time it was nastier it was difficult to think between the
shocks. And I told them toward the end of the night who the people
were and they stopped and tied me in a room for three days... we heard
torture in the next room. I Was moved to a place of solitary
confinement; I had my eyes taped down and was told to stand there; I
heard a van rev up and come toward me and thought they were going to
run me over but they didn't. I Was taken to solitary confinement;
first I prayed for release, but then i found another way -- to say to
God do with me what you want -- it is not easy -- and went back to the
blank check -- absurd conversations with God -- ``But you said it wa
blank cheque!'' and after a long struggle -- peeing in a jam jar
because I had cystitis as i was tortured there -- I was able to hand
the cheque over and not snatch it back -- and I have not taken it back
since.

I have had deep peace --- not on the surface, when it comes to bad
habits, you name it I do it -- but deep down I have had peace.

So after 3 weeks in solitary I was take to a women's detention
camp. That was one of the most wonderful experiences in my life --
I've never met such generosity, gentleness, and love. They were mostly
university students - middle class - who had met up with reality and
decided they wanted to make their country better. They had all been
tortured, most worse than I. One had been imprisoned in a water tower
with her legs tied up for 3 months -- others tortured in front of
their husbands and children -- many people had disappeared, lovers,
husbands, mothers. We never knew what had happened -- tortured till
they died? There was a randomness about it, not just the main
revolutionaries were killed but little people too. You could not tell
how the authorities would respond to an action.

So I was there for 5 weeks.. it greatly improved my Spanish! They
loved poetry. I think I knew the truth of a poem about freedom --
those in prison were freer than their imprisoners -- I had no
resentment against those who held me - forgiveness is a gift from God,
there have been other people I've hated and not forgiven.

Then I was released because of pressure from the British authorities,
I was becoming too hot to handle. Had they known how articulate I was
I probably would have never been released -- when someone is
assassinated there is a big stink but they are dead. But I'll talk
about that tomorrow.

Q: It came from your talk that you have no room for pious nonsense --
what do you think of the ``Back to Basics'' campaign?

A: I'm not sure what the government is up to. In the Gospels if you go
back to basics you go back to the prophets -- dealing not with sexual
ethics but with justice.

Q: Is the liberation theology movement very active in Chile? Did you
come across it?

A: I always found it very difficult to find what liberation theology
was until a monk at ampleforth told me it is liberation of theology
for the people. There are small groups of ordinary poor people who
reflect on what the gospel means -- the Old Testament is very alive in
the South American communities. The priests and nuns I was invovled
with were more into direct social action than theoretical theology.

Q: You said how difficult it was to come back for Christmas -- what is
it like now you're back long-term?

A:I have been becoming very degenerate -- it is ``reverse cultural
shock'' -- I see people have very different problems -- people's cup
of suffering can be filled wherever they are. You have to get used to
it, otherwise you stay miserable. Now I am unable to be poor, I am
into bears, clothes etc.

Q: Do you feel that your own inners wound have been healed and so you
can heal others, or are you working on your own healing at the same
time?

A:I think I am more healed than I was -- I went back to Chile in
November and that was a very healing experience. I think it's only
because I've been ill and foolish that I can understand as a doctor.

Q: How much could you see God in Chile at the time?

A: I think one always sees God in your own life in hindsight --
reviewing one's salvation history. I think at the time I was into
seeing God in my neighbours, although now I think it is important to
love your neighbours anyway without projecting God onto them.

Q: Was it worth it, and could chile return to that state?

A: For me it was worth it; I denied the horror of what had happened to
me for a long time, which was probably a bad idea. I don't dare to say
whether it was worth it for the Chilean people -- I think it has done
damage for them. I think it is unlikely to happen again -- people are
now very aware, on both sides that they must move gently towards
democracy.

Q: You said when you came back for Christmas you were angry with God
for calling you -- do you still feel that?

A: I've mostly been thanking him. It's mostly in recent years I've
realized how blessed I've been. Life is always a series of ups and
downs, but you must try to learn to appreciate them all.

Q: I was in Argentina at the time -- it was very similar to Chile --
what was the attitude in Chile of people toward Argentina?

A: my knowledge of Spanish was not good enough to tell -- I think it
was mostly preoccupied with its own situation.

Q: in Argentina, we pushed it under the carpet.

A: It was easy just not to believe what was going on.

Q: what was it like in the shanty-town clinic you worked in, and what
were the cultural values there?

A: It was like a garden shed; I was actually extremely comfortable
with the people -- I found little cultural barriers; a lot of fear was
translated into physical complaints. I was working with people who
hadn't eaten since the day before yesterday -- I can't keep going
without a sandwich in the morning -- it was humiliating without to an
utter degree.

Q: LIke you I was attracted to the dominican habit; [laughter -- it is
a Dominican friar asking] Can you tell me how you come to recognize a
calling?

A: I think I would mention being gifted for things -- I think we are
gifted for a certain calling by our actual gifts, intelligence, gift
for community life. I think you're not called to something if you're
miserable all the time -- you can be called if you're not keen on it
at first. If you think you are called, you pray, you listen, you take
wise counsel.

Q: Your experiences called you to reflect on human nature -- we talk
about sin an evil etc -- what did you learn about human nature?

A: I think I would talk more about woundedness than about sin -- even
the torturers who are very sick people. i would be hard-pressed to
write people off as wicked -- what they do is wicked; there is a
degree of wickedness but there is a massive degree of woundedness.

Q: So you see people as victims of things beyond their control?

A: Not entirely be beyond their control. But I'm not a theologian.

Q: Is God left-wing?

A: I think God cares passionately about justice; if it's left-wing to
care about justice, to feed the hungry, then God is left-wing.

Q: Why are you so nice to people ?

A: I've never met my torturers. My forgiveness of them is from God.
Intellectually I think they were very wounded people. I believe the
capacity to inflict pain is in all of us.

Q: You said you left your family behind -- you didn't like things
about them -- to go to Chile -- did you change your attitude to them
when you came back?

A: I think you mustn't confuse my outspokenness with being
derogatory. I was never estranged except perhaps from my father. I
think this frustration is common among peple coming back from the
third world.

Q: Did your family talk to you about it?

A: They were not really capable of understanding. The British don't
like to talk about nasty things.

Q: The spiritual discipline of praying -- did that help when you were
in solitary confinement?

A: Yes, immensely. I used to pray for half an hour every morning at
Oxford, although I lapsed for those 10 years. I went to a big
monastery every 6 days when at the hospital -- having lost my faith
before, I was afraid of losing it again. In prison I saw myself like a
priest -- I would say a Mass, to offer bread and water on behalf of
the other people in the prison. I had a great sense of union with the
monastic orders praying for us around the clock. There is so much to
be grateful for -- sparrows, the end of torture (there is nothing like
stopping being tortured for producing thankfulness!), a
blanket. Gratefulness at the heart of prayer is true!

Q: Have you had the opportunity to meet any of the hostages which came
out of Lebanon?

A:I haven't; I've had correspondence with Brian Keenan; a moving
letter about meeting God in prison; A poem by Irina Ratushinskaya
about surviving in prison.

Q: You said there religion worked very well. It seems we have to have
terrible conflict for religion to work well.

A: I think we get too hung up on liturgy. Re-arranging a cathedral
but not converting it to be a doss house -- I think there is enough
suffering here. God says (Isaiah, I think): ``I am pissed off to the
eyeballs with your rosaries and novenas etc.!''

Q: What do you say those who are bitter?

A: They are entitled to be bitter, but it does not help them?

Q: Do you want to go back?

A: No, I think there are many people better qualified than I to help
with the poor people -- I think I have qualities that are more useful
here. It is only recently that emotionally and legally I could go
back. I think my useful gift is writing.

Q: Do your books sell in chile?

A: They haven't yet been translated into Spanish. Now it could be
published, but there is very little money.

Q: You were infected by meeting very committed people - are you still
meeting them?

A: Yes, but I'm not talking with them much. I think the people who
travel light are those who want to travel light.

Q: [an australian catholic priest] It is catholic countries that are
prone to dictatorship -- is there something in the way the faith was
practiced or was the faith collaborating, or is it the will of God?

A: You did have a controlled trial in Ireland, don't you? I suppose
the patrons were in league with the church, and idea was there that
people were given their status and it would all be alright in heaven.

Q: how can we preserve this sense of human values outside the extremes
of poverty and suffering?

A: I think throw your lot in with the deprived in your won patch -- a
common fault is to ignore the deprived in your own street. If you work
with all those groups you will keep your own humanity.

Q: How would you keep a balance between being alone with God and being
out working with people -- is the balance continually changing?

A: I think the degree of aloneness you need is probably more to do
with your personality type (Myers-Briggs etc). I am very introvert,
whatever I may seem like and the way I pray is a very silent way --
pray as you can and not as you can't -- in order for prayer to
overflow into driving walking etc you do have to have some amount of
``waste of time'' prayers not hours but maybe 30, 45 minutes.

Q: What about the question of evil? Scott Peck said it was militant
ignorance, Solzhenitsyn said he could smell it like death? Where does
evil come in?

A: I don't believe in the devil -- I don't know where evil comes in. I
think the ``smell of it'' was just emotion. I don't really believe it
is a force -- people are wounded and act in an evil way. I think the
human mind is infinitely complex.